# Racism and "Wuhan virus" - only because Wuhan is a fairly well known large city?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-and-wuhan-virus-only-because-wuhan-is-a-fairly-well-known-large-city/849807>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 19, 2020, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-and-wuhan-virus-only-because-wuhan-is-a-fairly-well-known-large-city/849807 "2020-03-19T15:29:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 28

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**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2020, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism-and-wuhan-virus-only-because-wuhan-is-a-fairly-well-known-large-city/849807/28 "2020-03-19T18:41:19Z")

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> [@ASL\_v2.0](#):
>
> That misses the point. The OP, and apparently this debate, is about whether or not people think applying this label, the “Wuhan virus”, is bad because it stigmatizes the population of this supposedly well-known city. No mention was made of the broader problem of xenophobia or racism, effectively reducing it to the level of a dispute over which city has the better deep dish pizza or why [insert sports team] sucks so hard while [insert competing sports team from home town] rocks.

I quoted you and answered the question you asked directly. If you wanted a different question answered, you should have asked a different question.

> [@ASL\_v2.0](#):
>
> It takes the “let’s stop emphasizing the overseas origin of this virus, particular to China, when it comes to efforts to combat its spread so that we don’t turn this into a cause celebre for a bunch of xenophobic racists” position and reduces it to a straw man of “hey, don’t call it the Wuhan virus because that’s mean to the people of Wuhan that you might interact with in every day life since it’s such a big and well known city.”
> 
> It strikes me as a straw man with a side of question begging.

Your argument strikes me as idiotic and self-absorbed. The question was “who decided this was stigmatizing?” and the answer is “the people who name diseases because people told them it was stigmatizing to have a disease named after the place they lived.”

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